


Blood Memory

by Anonymous



Category: Castlevania (Cartoon), 悪魔城ドラキュラ | Castlevania Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood Drinking, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Curses, Dracula is a Good Parent, Empathy, Father-Son Relationship, Flashbacks, Folklore, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Historical References, Monsters, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Punishment, Shapeshifting, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:15:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25495927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: To humans, the bonds of blood are emotional, willfully constructed, almost... purely figurative. For vampires, on the other hand, the connecting force of shared blood is very real, and has been used for centuries to share information and experiences among ‘families’.As a child, Adrian relied heavily on his connection to his parents—both of them—to keep pace with the breakneck speed of his physical development.In 1475, it is his last hope to reconnect with his grief-stricken father and divert needless genocide.Connections run both ways, though... and Adrian had just lost his mother at the hands of humans.He had never disagreed with Father about punishing the guilty ones, after all.
Relationships: past Vlad Dracula Țepeș/Lisa Țepeș
Comments: 18
Kudos: 54
Collections: Anonymous





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Social distancing and associated financial insecurity has put me in a really weird place in regards to writing. There was another series I had been working on before All This happened, which I should be finishing/want to finish before starting anything else, but I just haven't been in the right headspace for it.
> 
> The only thing that I have been in the right frame of mind for, is this.
> 
> A few quick words of caution for any potential reader:
> 
> If all goes well, I will remove the anonymous status of this story upon completion of that other project. Until that happens, I'm hoping to continue working on this story anonymously so that I can keep in the habit of writing, which I all-too-easily fall out of.
> 
> I am a slow writer, and I struggle to finish stories. I have a good idea of where I want to take this story, but I can't guarantee I'll get it there with any real speed. I have better luck at writing interrelated one-shots, but I don't see a way to do that and maintain my current (hopefully) anonymity.
> 
> This story will be almost-entirely based off of the animated series, though I am borrowing elements from Symphony of the Night (the only Castlevania game I've really played), and possibly other elements I've found through various wiki-research, as needed. If some piece of information/etc. comes from a source other than the animated series, I will try to make a note of it.
> 
> Also, I apologize in advance if the memory sequence is overly-confusing. My suggestion is to read the next-lower line, there are sometimes placement patterns, and make note of what is and isn't italicized.
> 
> Apologies for the spacing issues, I'm working on it.
> 
> Initial dialogue is taken from "Witchbottle" with some minor changes by yours-truly, mostly related to pacing and emphasis. It should be fairly obvious when we diverge into AU territory.

“One year!” Dracula snarled, turning from the fading magic he’d used to cast judgement upon **_those animals_ ** in Târgoviște, only to immediately begin gathering in more power for a summoning ritual the likes of which this world had never seen. As such, he spared no attention to the door opening behind him. “It will take me **one year** to summon an army from the guts of Hell itself!” 

“No,” An unexpected, but normally-welcomed voice, interjected behind him. Except— 

“What do you mean, ‘ **no** ’?” He scoffed, the magic of the summoning ritual fading away as he turned his focus toward his son, standing backlit by the lights from the hall in his doorway. Some deep, subconscious level of his being relaxed at the sight of Adrian—whole and healthy, thankfully, he hadn’t even considered yet the possibility that he might **also** have been—while another part, feeding into the all-consuming hateful outrage that was the King of Vampires’ new existence agonized over **her** hair, and **her** hands, and **her** chin standing before him, and the knowledge that **her everything** was gone. 

**_Taken_** , from them both. 

“That woman was the **only reason on Earth** for me to tolerate human life!” He spat, reliving the Bishop’s insistence of **witchcraft** in his mind’s eye. Lisa—his sweet, too-trusting, darling wife—had always preferred the scientific over the alchemical or arcane. She had challenged him, in so many ways, and he’d been the better for it. 

Or at least, that’s what he’d thought, before. It had also made him softer, though. Too-trusting, in his own turn, and Lisa had paid the price for his... **complacency**. 

“Then find the one who— who did the deed.” Adrian insisted, and Dracula saw his normally-reticent son’s composure break, if briefly. His hand on the door tightened enough to make it creak in protest, and he swallowed thickly once, and again, before attempting to continue speaking. 

“If you let loose an Army of the Night on Wallachia,” he reasoned softly, almost mumbling, and Dracula could almost have sworn there was a frozen, wailing void chafing on the periphery of his burning rage and housed within the gold of his son’s eyes as their gazes held. “—you **cannot** undo it, and many thousands of people—” Here, Adrian broke eye contact to stare at the floor, voice turned small and miserable. “— **just as innocent as her** … will suffer and die.” 

“There **ARE** no innocents! Not anymore!” He exploded, rage boiling anew, and to even greater heights than before, at the mere mention of these supposed ‘innocent bystanders’, in Târgoviște and elsewhere within Wallachia. Adrian physically startled away from the door at the sudden violence of his outburst, stutter-stepping a good meter further into the room. “Any **one of them** could have—,” he choked on the words for a moment, rage shifting quickly toward that despairing void, Adrian stepping cautiously closer as he fixated on the idea of even **one person** there putting a stop to the cruel and sadistic death of a woman that had braved the chance of a horrific death just so she could _help others_ . _If they’d even_ **_delayed_ ** _them for a few moments..._ “—have **stood up** and said ‘No, we **won’t** behave like animals **anymore** ’.” 

Tears gathered in the corners of Adrian’s eyes, clumping his eyelashes into rust-and-copper spikes, but his back and shoulders were straight as he looked up at Dracula, just out of arm’s reach. “I won’t let you do it.” 

Dracula reeled, certain that the Earth must have fallen away under his feet to see his son’s—his darling boy’s—hand tighten around the grip of his sword, even as his composure shattered anew. His son would... turn against him...? For **_them_ **?! 

“I grieve with you, but—” Adrian concluded with miserable conviction, and Dracula knew with an equally terrible familiarity that only something truly egregious could temporarily waylay his son, and he was truly indomitable when he set his mind to something. Could he do that? Reduce his son to a state where he couldn’t stop him until it was already done? “I won’t let you commit needless genocide.” 

He **couldn’t** stop now. Not without **justice** for what they’d done. 

With the vague, fleeting idea of incapacitating the boy and imprisoning him until his revenge was complete, Dracula lunged the short distance between them—too close for the sword to be properly effective, even before this—and closed his hand around Adrian’s on the sword’s grip, crushing the fine bones—so like her hands—against the metal, pinning the arm down. 

Leaving Adrian open to a pre-emptive ‘counterattack’. 

Dracula could see Adrian’s eyes widen as he raised his free hand, claws extended for a deeply wounding blow—but not too deep; even now, he couldn’t bear the thought of killing him, just something to keep him out of the way to recover while he finished his work—then, he did something... strange. 

Instead of reaching with his remaining free hand to try and stop the strike—it was on the wrong side of his body to stop it, really, though he might have tried to free his hand and retreat to a safer distance if his opponent were anyone else—Adrian instead brought his wrist up to his mouth, lightning-quick, and tore a recklessly deep rend in the flesh there from the heel of his palm to halfway down his forearm. 

Dracula hesitated, and Adrian took the time this provided to push the gushing self-inflicted wound into his father’s mouth. 

* * *

Memories... 

… and sensations... 

… assaulted his senses. 

_I’ve never shared blood memories with Father before._

_Received memories, yes, but not shared..._

_… please let this work..._

_Crunching leaves, under his boots._

_Best to stick to the shade for now, until the sun sets. Easier._

_Brief glimpses at a reddening sky, as the day ends_

_He’s heading back early, he knows, but he wanted to surprise her, him. Both of his parents. He hadn’t cooked dinner for anyone but himself in so long, it seemed._

_Just a blip in time, for Father, but still..._

_Excitement, to hear about the adventures they’d had, while he had his own..._

_The scrape of bark against his gloves._

_Testing his architectural skills in Greșit had gone surprisingly well, building off the established structure of the deeper, forgotten catacombs there._

_Colder, now, as night started to settle in._

_Perhaps I can show Father, later._

_He veered back toward the road, now. It would be more comfortable now, and faster besides, with the light gone._

Her light was gone, now. 

_A chill, running down his spine._

_Danger._

_The feeling of being hunted, though the forest was still, save for his passing._

_What is happening?_

_Not his sensation, but an echo._

_A sudden change in one of his two blood bonds to his parents._

No. 

_Mother._

_Danger._

_He ran._

_What sort of danger?_

_Harder to tell, that connection was less precise._

_Pain. The sour taste of his mother’s fear._

_Faster._

_He needed to go faster._

_The Wolf._

_I have to help her._

_Dirt and rocks like bullets, kicked up by his paws._

Oh no. 

_Pain. Claustrophobic panic._

_Not fast enough. Magic. Everything he has._

He hadn’t considered this possibility, in his rage. 

_Faster._

_Still too far._

_I’m coming, Mother!_

_Small space, damp. Imprisoned._

_Not good._

_I can free her, though._

But he won’t... Oh, Lisa... 

_… still so far away, though..._

_Pain, shaky steps, as his magic is temporarily exhausted._

_Incredulity. Witchcraft? No, it’s just science._

_No. Too soon. Shouldn’t there be a trial, at least?_

_Stay in prison, just stay there, please._

_Just for a while._

_The alternative is unthinkable._

_Leaping across a narrow valley._

The unthinkable happened, though. 

_Heat and pain, in his hind legs._

_Eyes tearing up._

_Stumbling._

_Up, get back up. Keep running._

_So close, now._

_Not close enough, yet._

_Burning._

No. He... he felt it, too...? Adrian, my boy... 

_Eyes watering._

_Farther, just a little farther..._

_Another leap._

_Crack!_

_Pain._

_Made brittle by fire._

_Broken on impact._

_Need to keep running._

_Can’t compensate with magic._

_There would be no saving her._

No! 

_No!_

_Keep running. Have to._

_A final plea._

_Please, let me save her._

_“Don’t hurt them! They don’t understand!”_

_As clear in his ears as if they were in arm’s reach._

_Even though he’s_ **_still too far away! Damn it!_ **

_Agony. With each breath..._

_… with each footfall..._

… with every passing second. 

_Mother...!_

Lisa... 

_It was so hard to see._

_Is that the city, up ahead?_

_Burning, higher now._

Dawning horror. How close did he get, to saving her...? 

_“I know it’s not your fault, but...”_

Guilt, beneath the rage, all the same. 

_Bad impact. The taste of ashen vomit on his tongue._

_Keep running. Please._

_“... if you can hear me...”_

_The city wasn’t Târgoviște proper, but close..._

_Body engulfed in flames. Ribs creaking like tinder, ready to snap._

_“... they don’t know what they’re doing.”_

Forgiveness...? 

_Wheezing. Can’t breathe through the smoke._

_The outskirts of Târgoviște blurring unsteadily by._

_Where is she?!_

_“Be better than them! Please!”_

_A change in the wind._

_Her scent, there!_

_A sudden surge in the flames..._

_… a crescendo of unending pain, and a fleeting longing for their little family..._

_… then nothing._

No! No, no, no... 

_Shock, leading to a stumble._

_Startling a horse, a kick in panic._

_Rib-shattering contact with a withered, singed pelt._

_Impact of spine to stone._

_A man, again. Legs won’t move._

_Maybe I can still reach her... Please..._

_Shaky hands, clawing in the dirt._

_Willing his legs to heal, he must be close..._

_Around a corner, and the blaze was in sight._

My boy... My wife... No, this is too cruel... 

_Please..._

_Hand over hand, pull and drag, while bones freed from bearing weight weakly begin to knit together._

_Finally, he could see her..._

_… see her shriveled, still husk amongst the flames._

_Too late._

_Despair._

_He was too late._

Agony. 

_Agony._

_The empty void of a broken connection._

The pressure of cold stone under his knees... 

_… his face._

_Weak, piteous sobbing._

_Endless moments of black despair._

Listless fantasies of what could have been. 

_… what could be, if he followed her._

A shock of alarm like lightning down his spine. 

_… Father._

_I need to find Father._

_Gripping terror at the thought of losing them_ **_both_ ** _._

_I... I need to tell him._

_… tell him how I failed._

Face snarling at the thought. Never a failure, his precious boy. 

The connection... 

Shuddered. 

But then— 

—a new gush of blood into his mouth. 

_Uncertainty._

_Where would Father be?_

_She had encouraged him not to plan his route, just his return date._

_Tonight._

_The castle can find him._

_With the mirror._

_Hands and knees, up._

_Wracked with pain and weakness, but able to stand._

_Hesitation. Should he wait to... gather her ashes?_

Surprised disgust with himself for not considering that before. 

_… No. Not yet._

_They could come back for them, together._

… She would have liked that. 

_Drink the horse dry to regain some energy._

_… and for kicking him._

A spark of something like amusement, gone almost before it formed. 

_The castle wasn’t far._

_In the mountains._

_The Bat would be more direct._

_Pushing down the air through fingers grown long and membranous._

_Away from the fire, into the chill of the night._

_… the persistent chill of despair._

_The spark of fire below._

A twisting, screaming column of burning rage. 

_A realization._

_He’ll want revenge._

Still wants it, on those fiends. 

_But she said..._

_Pleaded._

_Don’t hurt them._

_They don’t understand._

_Be better than them._

Anguish. 

Indecision. 

What of justice? She was innocent. 

_Well-meaning, to a fault._

_… spare the innocent._

And the guilty? 

_… punish them._

… for her. 

_… for her._

* * *

Adrian’s wrist fell away from his mouth limply, and Dracula returned to himself with a start, kneeling on the floor, one arm still raised to strike while the other had pulled Adrian forward into an awkward stoop. 

He blinked several times as the inexperienced jumble of his son’s thoughts and memories settled into his mind. This close, and with his new insight, he could see evidence of his son’s exhaustion and lingering injury everywhere he looked: tell-tale furrows and wrinkles around his eyes, mouth, nose, and his forehead, carved into sharp relief by pain; the deep set of his eyes that would be deeply bruised but for his blood-starved pallor; dirty tangles in normally-immaculate hair; minute trembles and twitches in each of his utterly-overworked limbs, too weak to pull away even if he hadn’t pinned him; the weak, faltering thump of a normally-strong, albeit slow, heartbeat. 

Alarmed by this last discovery, he moved his hands to hold Adrian’s shoulders. “What—? You—,” he adjusted his hold, half panicked, so he could hold his _foolish, darling boy_ close with one arm so he could grab his still-bleeding arm with the other. Dracula swallowed, then briskly licked over the wound to promote coagulation and healing and hugged Adrian’s unresisting body close. “Foolish boy. Sharing blood when you’ve none to spare. Well?” He sniffed, tilting his head away enough to just keep eye contact, ignoring the sting in his eyes. He wasn’t about to cry twice in one day, after remaining dry-eyed for near twenty years, because _he wasn’t about to lose Adrian, too_. “Drink something before you shrivel up and blow away on the wind.” 

Instead of complying, though, Adrian just looked at him, searching his countenance for several long moments. Just as he was seriously considering forcing his face down into his neck, Adrian let out a soft, relieved sigh at whatever he’d found there, raising his arms to weakly return the hug before nuzzling into his neck and biting delicately. 

Dracula carefully rearranged their bodies into a more comfortable kneeling arrangement, petting blond locks and absently working loose any tangles his fingers found. His chest hurt, but from the familiarity of the action, and not the steady, weakening pull at his neck. 

Several long minutes passed in this fashion, Dracula welcoming a slow-growing lethargy as Adrian’s heartbeat strengthened, his tremors stopped, and health and vitality was restored. Still, it came as somewhat of a surprise when the blood bond between them resurged from a simple, near-dormant connection in the background of his mind, sparking with the life of active exchange and interrupting the tune Dracula hadn’t realized he’d begun humming. 

He thought, for a moment, of Adrian’s journey this night, of the cost he’d paid... of how close he’d come to stopping it still... and the choice was clear. With the ease borne of long practice, he gathered his experiences of increasing his teleportation range, the memories, the feel of drawing energy directly from the chaosfire their magic stems from instead of their internal capacity and its individual affinities, the various pains and embarrassments of his failures, the thrill of his first success and the ultimate confidence that came with mastering the art. So as not to overwhelm the boy, though, and leave him insensible to the world around them as he himself had been earlier, he fed the knowledge to him slowly, one mouthful at a time. 

Once the information had been fully conveyed, and the lingering threat of Adrian perishing had passed, the boy moved to pull back, likely to lick the wound so it would clot and be allowed to close, but Dracula resisted, applying gentle pressure to the back of his head until he relented, sipping lightly enough to just maintain a pressure seal, and the live connection between them. He just basked in the undirected connection between them for a time—incidentally sharing fleeting glimpses of his thoughts and memories, most likely—enveloping himself in the cool, soothing presence of his son, like a fog gently seeping into cracked, scorched earth. 

It occurred to him, then, that the freezing, despairing void he’d felt on the periphery of his awareness earlier, had been Adrian’s own mind, his... _disorientated distress_ , seeking any sort of comfort or connection with the only tether he had left, but his own rage at the time had blinded him to it, and compelled him to lash out and push that connection away. He was still—rightfully—angry, to be sure, and he now knew had Adrian had more than a spark of his own anger, as well, drowning as it may have been under the weight of his despair, before. 

They had been at two extremes, but now found themselves rather closer to the middle. With it came clarity, like the eye of a hurricane. 

“No blind genocide,” he breathed, and Adrian hummed softly, encouragingly, to show he was listening. “For her, I can do that.” 

He thought of the old woman he’d found at the destroyed cottage—too frail and small to stop a, but still unwilling to condone it—and how, even in the midst of his growing rage, he’d spared her, and told her to leave Wallachia. 

This... was acceptable. They could live... and he wouldn’t have to see them ever again. 

“I don’t want them here anymore, though,” he prefaced his idea, then carefully nudged the memory and the beginnings of a plan through their connection to Adrian, who moved to pull away again, so Dracula finally relented. 

With a quick parting lick to stop the remaining trickle, Adrian sat back to look at him. There was a calculating spark in his golden eyes when he finally shared his thoughts. “Some of them may refuse to listen, out of some sense of divine entitlement to the land... To prevent that, I propose a curse.” 

Dracula quirked an eyebrow at that. “A curse? Is that so dissimilar from my original plan of simply killing the wretches?” 

Adrian shook his head, voice gaining confidence as the idea formed in his head. “Not on the people, Father, but _Wallachia_ _itself_.” 

“Go on,” Dracula encouraged, intrigued. 

“We banish the humans from Wallachia,” Adrian reiterated. “Then, after we’ve given them the chance to do so, we curse the land so that any humans that remain within Wallachia accept complicit accountability and come to understand **_exactly_ ** what they did... what they took from us.” Adrian sniffed sharply, blinking several times before continuing. “Let them feel _all of the_ **_pain_ ** _, all of the_ **_hate and despair_ **they inflicted on us. Let it drive them away... or let them accept their fate and destroy themselves.” 

“A Curse... of Empathy,” Dracula summarized. “I’m impressed.” In fact, the more he thought on it, the more impressed he became. “It will still take nearly a year to prepare a curse that can cover such a large area, including setting the boundary sigils.” 

“I’m still rather inexperienced at the sort of complicated spellwork I imagine this requires,” Adrian admitted, ducking his head in embarrassment, but Dracula paid it no mind. The boy was barely grown, after all—of course he was inexperienced. “—but I can tell the villagers to leave and work the boundary lines... if you’ll show me what runes to carve.” 

That would free up his time to concentrate on the core of the spell, itself. “That would aid me significantly, son. I’ll admit,” he paused to stand, pulling Adrian up with him, then settling with one hand on his shoulder. “I’ve never cast a curse _quite_ like this one, before. We can design it together.” 

“I’d like that,” Adrian admitted, discretely covering his mouth with one hand to disguise a yawn. 

“For now, though, refresh yourself and get some rest. Your rooms should be just as you left them. And before you argue—” Dracula forestalled, jostling the shoulder under his hand and managing something like a small, crooked smile for his son’s own concern for him. Only two people had ever thought to be concerned for him like this. “I will rest myself, shortly. I have a mind to talk with the Master Librarian about the books we need and arranging a meal for us when we awaken. We have much to prepare.” 

Adrian huffed, but relented. “Very well, Father. I will rejoin you after I’ve rested.” He leaned into Dracula’s hand for a moment more, then retreated to the door. Before he passed through it, though, he paused, one hand holding the door open as before though he faced outward, now. “... There are... two things, that I think we should do before we begin our research, though.” 

“Oh?” Dracula tilted his head slightly in inquiry. “And what are they, son?” 

“We should collect Mother’s ashes, before the humans try to dispose of them with their sewage, or worse,” he answered, gripping the door tightly enough for it to groan, again. “And,” Adrian glanced over his shoulder at him, that same spark of righteous fury in his eyes as when he proposed the curse on Wallachia. “We find that bishop you saw that hunted her, and impale him alive atop the cathedral to die over several days.” 

Dracula felt a shudder run down his spine, some deep, dark part of himself that might not have been _quite entirely_ satisfied leaving their justice at just the curse now taking vicious satisfaction in the thought of punishing _that man specifically_. “ ** _Yes_ **, that’s a good idea. Rest well until then, my son.” 

Punish the guilty, but harm no innocent. 

For her, for them _both_ , he would gladly do this. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may have finished this chapter sooner, but I spent more time than I reasonably should have doing some (mostly Google/Wikipedia-level) research on magic/mythology, Romania/Wallachia and its geography/history, Castlevania equipment and monsters, and other minutiae related to the logistics of this story. 
> 
> I make absolutely no claim of being a historian, however.
> 
> Sorry again about the spacing going weird between words; something keeps happening between my word processor and putting it into AO3, but I'm not sure why.

_It was the brightest_ _place_ _he'd ever seen with his own eyes._

_He'd seen grand ballrooms_ _sparkli_ _ng with light and magic_ _(and wine)_ _with Father's eyes, and danced_ _using Mother's feet around bright festival bonfires_ _with_ _a nimbleness_ _his chubby little legs_ _couldn’t quite manage yet_ _with his own body_ _, but he had no memories of a place like this, at least not yet._

_Just inside the bright place, there was a large, somewhat round, green thing with smaller, white-and-yellow things on it that looked like the_ **_”_ ** **_Febrifugia_** ** _: for headache, arthritis, digestion, and fever. Now then, where did I leave my notes—?”_ ** _from Mother’s memories._

_“Flower,” he suddenly recalled and yes, that seemed right._

_He raised tiny grasping hands towards the flowers and took several more tottering steps forward, struggling not to trip on the long, long hem of the gown Mother had put him in earlier. It made him happy when she held him while she worked to keep him warm, but she’d been studying poisonous plants for—One, two, five? No, that goes later, maybe three? That sounded better, but he wasn’t entirely sure. Numbers were tricky, and Mother_ ** _and_** _Father both just... knew them, so they didn’t think about which way they go in._ ** _Three_** _days, Mother had been studying them, so he had been left in the cradle with the gown._

_That’s why he was here now, just outside of the bright place trying to reach the still-too-far-away flower. He was bored._

_Just as he was about to step into the light—and finally reach the flower—something fell to the ground behind him._

_“ADRIAN,_ ** _NO_** _!” Mother screamed, running frantically down the hallway toward him._

_Startled by the volume and speed of her actions, he jumped and tried to back away, into the bright place. He stepped on the gown, though, and tripped backward into the light, knocking the back of his head on the stone floor._

_He lay there for a moment, stunned, while Mother screamed louder, then he started to cry, too._

_Mother was frightening, it was_ ** _very bright_** _, and his head hurt._

_He felt a heavy, far-away thud through the floor, then suddenly Mother was_ ** _there_** _, snatching him up from the floor and crushing him against her chest before running back out of the bright place._

_Normally, he would be happy, cuddling close with Mother like this, but she was holding too tight and crying still and his_ ** _head hurt_** _._

_Her voice sounded all different when she was crying so he couldn’t really understand her, so when Father suddenly appeared in the hallway, tottering a bit like he did and a bit like the metal horse Father remembered making but Adrian hadn’t found yet, he reached for him while trying to squirm free, still crying._

_“What’s going on? I heard screaming,” Father asked, automatically reaching to take Adrian when he reached out for him. Adrian felt Mother hold him_ ** _even tighter_** _when Father gently tugged at him the first time, but then she finally let him go._

_Father’s hand was big and soothing as he stroked his back, and he still smelled like sleeping, so Adrian burrowed his face down into his neck where the scent was stronger while his cries turned into little hiccups._

_Mother had to try a few times to get her words out right, which Adrian sympathized with; words could be just as tricky as numbers, sometimes. “He wasn’t in his cradle when I came to feed him. When I found him, he was walking into the_ ** _greenhouse_** _in the middle of the day!”_

_Mother started crying again, and Father’s hand stopped on his back. Adrian made an unhappy noise in protest while he tried to find a word to use so Father would continue stroking, but luckily Father understood what he wanted before he had to give up. He didn’t have those words, yet. Father even pricked a little spot on his neck for Adrian to suck on before he started stroking again, though now he seemed to want to stroke all of Adrian. His head, his arms, Father even reached under the long, long hem of his gown to pet Adrian’s little legs, like he might’ve misplaced them somehow._

_“He wasn’t burned?” Father said, even though it sounded weird, and more like a question. Adrian didn’t pay it much mind, though, because Father’s hand tickled his little bare feet and Father’s memories were showing him how he built part of the tower. Counterweights. Maybe the metal horse had other toys he could use to build a house for it, wherever it was._

_He thought Mother said something back to Father—he was a little distracted at the moment, so he didn’t notice—because now she was petting him, too, very lightly on the back of his head._

_“—he doesn’t_ ** _appear_** _injured, though...?”_

_“No,” Father agreed and stopped stroking Adrian again; he did it to hold Mother close, too, though, so it was okay. “His blood flow is normal... for him, at least.”_

_This was his favorite place—close to both of them._

_“What were you even doing in there, little one?” Mother sighed, and Adrian tried to turn so he could look at her while still suckling, but in the end, he had to let go to see her. “And walking so soon! Most babies wouldn’t_ ** _crawl_** _for six months or_ ** _more_** _, yet.”_

_“He’s not ‘most babies’, though,” Father commented, and Adrian agreed; he was just_ ** _one_** _baby—this time he had the number right. That seemed like a lot to try to say, though, so he reached back toward the greenhouse instead and tried to answer her question._

_“Flower.”_

_Mother and Father both gasped, but Father’s blood smelled so good and was starting to leak down his neck, so Adrian went back to suckling. He was hungry._

_“Was that—?” Father’s voice vibrated his neck under Adrian’s mouth._

_“His first word,” Mother answered, lightly kissing the side of Adrian’s head where he was feeding, then giving Father a kiss, too, from the sound of things, which Adrian supposed was only fair._

* * *

As expected, there was a sizable commotion along the streets of Târgoviște when Adrian and his entourage rode into the city. 

Normally, he would have preferred to travel alone—he could move faster that way—but while he may be able to draw enough attention to deliver his message like that in the smaller towns and villages, one solitary man’s arrival, no matter how formal his appearance, would hardly be noticed in a large city. 

Both his father and himself had been here not three days before ‘adorning' the cathedral, after all, with nary a prick of a horse’s ear to mark their passage. 

Many of the denizens of the castle could not travel safely in daylight, which was necessary for communicating with the diurnal humans, so the composition of their little cadre had required some consideration. As it stood, he was surrounded by four sets of animated full plate armor—two in the vanguard, two in the rear—riding atop four similarly-armored Nightmares cloaked in crimson caparisons to shield them from direct exposure to the light. He himself was dressed in the ancestral armor of his mother's family—with the exception of the Dragon Helm, which was stowed in a saddle bag behind him—last worn by his grandfather, further enhanced through magic by Father when he inherited it and his sword at ten years of age. — 

_He missed_ _Opa_ _terribly, as well._

—His mount did not require the cover of a caparison, though he, too, was armored, most notably the chanfron, which covered from the crown of his head down the bridge of his nose, to conceal the fact that the prominent black horn on his forehead was not, in actuality, part of the aforementioned armor. 

Together, they stood out enough to gather a crowd as they converged on the steps of the cathedral, but not so much as to immediately incite the city’s _vigilia_. The watchmen hardly posed a threat, but it would be inconvenient, and would likely violate his mother’s dying wish for mercy for the humans. 

The armors flanked either side of the steps like statues while Adrian dismounted the black unicorn and ascended the stairs, document scroll in hand, before turning to face the gathered crowd. Raising his voice so it would carry clearly over the crowd without devolving into a string of incomprehensible shouting, he prefaced the proclamation. 

“I am Adrian Țepeș, and I come bearing news of the utmost importance to **all** individuals within this city.” He then unrolled the document and began to recite the first copy of the decree he had helped Father draft while they researched the form their curse would ultimately take, written with a goose-feather quill on enchanted vellum. 

* * *

_On behalf of the True Eternal_ _King and_ _Sovereign of Wallachia, Vlad_

_Drăculea_ _Țepeș,_ _the following decree has been issued:_

_In response to the most egregious of crimes committed against His_

_Highness and His house Drăculești, ALL HUMANS are henceforth_

_BANISHED from ALL Wallachian TERRITORY and WATERS. Anyone found_

_v_ _iolating this mandate one year hence, at sunrise on the THIRTEENTH_

_day of JUNE of the Julian calendar, shall be found complicit in the most_

_vile of murders, for which this decree has been issued, and thereby_

_submit themselves to JUDGEMENT on a scale in proportion to the_

_original perpetrators of the act. PROHIBITING, or otherwise unduly_

_hindering, someone attempting to comply with this decree is strictly_

_FORBIDDEN and subject to IMMEDIATE recompense or retaliation, either_

_by the hindered party or the envoy of House Drăculești._

_No further warnings, reminders, or extensions of this decree shall be_

_given._

* * *

“May your preparations progress swiftly and your pack animals be sure-footed,” he concluded once the decree itself had been read, then immediately began his speech again in Germanic—for the Transylvanian Saxons, his mother’s people, that had been living in the city up to this point—amidst the crowd's rising incredulity. He expected a fair amount of questions and outrage, but by the time he repeated himself twice more—in Slavonic and Bulgarian—his voice could not penetrate the din of murmurs, shouts, and grumblings that had taken over the ever-growing crowd. 

He sighed, then pinched the bridge of his nose in the vain hope of staving off an oncoming headache, made worse by the bright daylight. 

As one, the mounted armors shifted their formation from two ‘columns’ to a single line between Adrian on the steps and the crowd, as if his small expression of fatigue had been some sort of signal. Some of the nearer humans quieted at the act, but the majority likely could barely see Adrian himself, much less his ‘bodyguards’. 

Perhaps something else would catch their attention, then. 

He turned away from the crowd and approached the cathedral, just to one side of the entrance. The residual not-scent of bygone consecration—sped along in its death by a clear lack of proper containment practices that he could see, and the rotting-sweet not-scent of decay emanating from further inside—pricked at the sensitive tissues of his eyes, nose, and mouth without causing any real damage. From a sheath behind his back, under his cloak, he produced an inscribed dagger—black-handled, with a _strophalos_ etched into the wheel pommel, as well as several glyphs related to the curse lining the short fuller of the blade—before stabbing it through the document and into the stone of the cathedral to the crossguard with a mighty clang. 

In the ensuing silence, Adrian could _hear_ the magical intent of the dagger sliding into place like a key turning a lock, and felt the remaining wisps of consecration shake apart, even though the dagger’s purpose had not yet been evoked. 

Satisfied with the _arthame’s_ placement and the vertical alignment of the document’s Romanian Cyrillic script, Adrian returned to his previous position, and the crowd that was eying him—and beginning to murmur amongst itself again, already. 

“Do I have your attention?” he asked, sardonically. The crowd settled, again. “Good. I understand that you have some questions.” 

Immediately, a host of voices shouted up at him in a handful of different languages. 

“What did you mean by ‘king’? What of the voivode?” 

“What of the _Ottomans_?” 

“My family has lived here for **generations**!” 

“Does this ‘Eternal King’ intend to claim the _Dunărea_ _—_ the Danube—as well?” 

“Where are we expected to go?!” 

“I’m too old to travel.” 

“Why has this happened?” 

“This will financially ruin me!” 

“Why now?” 

“What if we refuse to leave our lives, our livelihoods, behind?” 

“Does this mean the government’s slaves are being freed?” 

“ **One at a time**!” Adrian finally shouted, sorely tempted to simply don the Dragon Helm to frighten the townspeople away and ride off in dramatic fashion. Mass evictions weren’t unheard of, after all, though normally they left a specific ethnic group behind to work the land, or in anticipation of the arrival of a replacement population, for the ruler’s economic and monetary gain. Father simply had neither need nor desire for this second part, that was all. 

“How do you expect me to address your questions without affording me the time in which to do so?” 

There was a soft, wet ‘splat’ behind him. 

Adrian turned to look at the small lump of viscera that had appeared behind him, then looked up toward the top of the cathedral, where it looked like a crow had abandoned its dropped meal in favor of the remaining eye of the Bishop’s corpse. 

So, he hadn’t made it the full three days, then. 

Father would want to know, for science. 

Unphased, he turned back to the crowd, and the overall change in their demeanor and pallor. They must not have noticed, before. “Now, then—” 

“—who would like to ask their question first?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those only familiar with the animated series: Alucard's armor is based on his beginning equipment from Symphony of the Night (imaginatively called the Alucard Armor/Shield/Sword, and the Dragon Helm). It doesn't actually show on his sprite in-game, but I enjoy it and wanted to include it.
> 
> The horse-shaped Nightmares don't exist in SotN, but I found them when looking for horse-like Castlevania monsters and enjoyed their design, so here they are. The armors do exist in SotN, but like, just imagine a suit of full plate mail that can walk around/attack on its own.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, no grand excuses this time. This chapter just fought me.
> 
> Also, certain anachronistic word choices are deliberate.
> 
> I'm still not a historian, though.
> 
> One referenced monster is (as far as I can tell) an original creation, while the rest are from (non-SotN) Castlevania games, though I did reference a very minor tweak I'm adopting to one of them.
> 
> I thought I'd tracked down the cause for the odd spacing, but I've been proven wrong. Apologies.

_“_ _Mother,_ _why are humans afraid of me?”_

_“_ _They aren’t_ ** _afraid_** _of you, honey,”_ _Mother tried to reassure him. “Only… they haven’t met someone as unique as you are before._ _They don’t know how they should behave, that’s all.”_

_Adrian had his doubts, however._ _The boys he'd found trying to catch frogs had smelled sour_ _-sharp_ _when_ _he greeted them, and he heard their hearts racing when_ _he_ _moved closer._ _The_ _girl gathering flowers shrieked briefly when he_ _ran_ _about the field_ _to help her, and had refused to take them from his hand._ _The baker called him slow_ _when they visited the market and he didn’t have the word for_ _‘rolls' when he tried to buy some, but his heart had skipped strangely when he took the money._ _Even_ _Tante_ _hadn’t—_

_“_ _It won’t help anything to deceive him,_ _dear,” Father_ _disagreed, blood red eyes_ _peeking over his book, before settling on Adrian._ _“They_ ** _are_** _afraid of you, and not just because you’re a_ _prince. Deep down, they recognize the predator in you, and they’re unaccustomed to feeling hunted._ _You needn’t fear them yourself, but_ _do be cautious, son._ _It is_ _well within their power to hurt you_ _in kind_ _.”_

_“_ _But I don’t want to_ ** _hurt_** _anyone_ _,” Adrian objected, alarmed_ _._ _In fact, he hadn’t even considered that the humans might want to hurt_ ** _him_** _, either._ _He'd just wanted to make a friend_ _,_ _meet Mother’s family,_ _and try one of the small breads that had smelled so good._

_“They_ _don’t know_ _that, though,_ _” Mother pointed out soothingly, then turned to give Father some look that Adrian couldn’t see, but made him_ _harrumph and duck back behind his book._ _“Come here, honey,”_ _Mother beckoned, then tucked him against her side_ _when he scooted closer_ _along the_ _seat_ _’s_ _cushion_ _._ _Her dress rustled noisily against his ear as she carded her fingers through his hair; it was starting to grow rather long, again_ _._ _“Perhaps I can explain it better another way_ _…_ _Oh!_ _What do you feel, when you find yourself missing an important word, or come across something you don’t recognize?”_

_Adrian thought about that for a moment._ _“I suppose_ _I usually feel frustrated_ _, or perhaps sad._ _I thought_ _your—your—leaf medicine paste to stop_ _infections—,” he started floundering, still missing the term he was looking_ _for and working himself up over the verbal stumbling._ _Oh, why did he even try to say anything at all?_ _Better that he'd not said anything_ _—!_

_Mother took pity on him._ _“The_ **_poultice_ ** _I made_ _two days ago?_ _”_

_“_ **_Poultice_** _,_ _yes,_ _” Adrian echoed, relieved._ _That was a word he didn’t have before._ _Embarrassed_ _,_ _he concluded in a small, miserable tone_ _. “..._ _I meant_ _only_ _to say that it smelled nice_ _.”_

_Father made an affirming sound_ _while Mother gently hugged him._ _Adrian relaxed_ _when_ _Father drew the attention away from him and his mistakes_ _to other topics._ _“It_ ** _did_** _smell lovely, dearest._ _I was of two minds over whether I should_ _rather prefer to_ ** _eat_** _it or_ ** _bathe_** _with it.”_

_“_ _Of all people,_ ** _you_** _should know better than to_ ** _eat_** _medicine designed to be applied_ _externally,” Mother replied, smile clear in her voice, at least until_ _something occurred to her. “Although,_ _I am now curious of its effects_ _on a body when used in a bath, particularly one hot enough to steam a bit—_ _”_

_“Later, dearest._ _We can add it to our_ _list of_ _other experiments_ _to_ _find patients for,_ _when next we move the castle,”_ _Father_ _interrupted_ _softly,_ _eyes crinkled and soft over his book, again._

_“Oh! Yes,_ _of course_ _,”_ _Mother agreed as Father finally gave up on his book and moved to kneel down before their seat_ _,_ _even though_ _there was room_ _enough_ _for him to sit with them_ _… probably._ _Adrian forgot at times the actual size of his_ _body. He shifted uncomfortably_ _for a moment as the focus of the conversation returned squarely to him._

_“Knowing that you lack a certain knowledge is clearly cause for both frustration and upset,” Father instructed Adrian, gently chucking him under the chin_ _though his face was serious._ _“Imagine, then, how you might feel if your_ _ignorance_ _could cause you, or someone you care about, to come to considerable harm, or even death.”_

_Adrian gasped, gripped suddenly by the possibility that_ ** _he_** _could get Mother hurt, or that Father—even with all of his magic—could die because of him. And, there were the other residents of the castle to think about, too; even though they might not strictly be his family, everyone—the gargoyles that always helped him hide when playing near the rooftops, the animated armor that had picked him up and carried him to Father’s study when he fell down the stairs of the donjon a year ago, Miss Arachne and her siblings who made almost all of his clothing even if he kept growing out of them too quickly, the Master Librarian who would read him stories on rainy days if he behaved around the books, and others besides—helped him and Mother and Father so much and so often, that it would be just_ ** _awful_** _if they died because of his shortcomings._

_“The majority of humans lack the power, skill, or experience to resist such an event against those they care about,” Mother concluded, sadly. “What they_ ** _can_** _do, however, is avoid situations that could result in that happening, often by being suspicious of people and situations they aren’t familiar with. Proven results are the safer.”_

_“What of_ _Opa_ _, though?” Adrian asked, craning his head around to look up at Mother. “He protected humans when he was younger—he told me so.”_

_“Your grandfather is a rare exception,” Mother replied, then lightly tapped Adrian on the nose. “And was he afraid of you when you met?”_

_“No,” Adrian answered immediately, then stopped to think about that for a moment. “So... humans won’t fear me if they’re powerful?”_

_“Most likely yes; or, at least, if they think they are powerful. But, you must yourself be cautious, son,” Father warned, gripping Adrian’s shoulders almost too-tight. “Powerful humans are less afraid_ ** _because_** _they themselves are more dangerous, both to you, and to anyone else they deem ‘an affront’ to their view of the world’s natural order.”_

_“On the topic of natural laws, a growing_ _dhampir_ _still needs his sleep, especially if he wants to travel with me into town early tomorrow for more sweet rolls.” Mother closed the discussion for the night with a clap of her hands, and although Adrian was tempted to argue... he_ ** _did_** _want more of those rolls._

_“I’ll put him to bed, and bid you goodnight after?” Father offered, and Mother made a noise of agreement before leaning forward to kiss him. Adrian began to pantomime regurgitation once they’d carried on longer than he deemed necessary._

_Seeing this, Father barked out a surprised laugh, which successfully broke their extended contact to Adrian’s somewhat smug delight. Mother playfully swatted at Adrian’s knee and tugged the edge of her skirt out from where he’d been sitting on it. “You’re a little menace_ _!_ _W_ _ho raised you to act like that?”_

_“We did, I’m afraid, dearest,” Father replied, warmly, and_ _Adrian_ _grinned outright_ _. There were times that Father wanted him to_ _behave in a_ _‘princely’_ _manner_ _which_ _Adrian didn’t always recognize, and pretending to vomit_ ** _likely_** _did not fall within that category_ _, so it was always a relief_ _when Father_ _conducted himself similarly_ _, or at least, didn’t_ _see the need to scold or correct him_ _._

_“Incorrigible, the both of you,” Mother huffed, but noticeably without heat. “To bed with us, then.”_ _So_ _saying, she stood in a dramatic swish of her skirt and started for the door. Father stood to follow her while Adrian hopped down, and together they followed Mother through the castle._

_The halls, particularly once they reached the residential wing, were relatively quiet. They passed a Fox Archer carrying a trio of darkly-plumaged divers near the kitchens, two pairs of armor saluted them with the quiet clink of metal-on-metal, and a large, muscular woman with a horse’s skull for a head and a massive axe balanced on one shoulder with one hand while the other dragged a_ **_massive_** _evergreen bowed her head deferentially as they crossed paths at an intersection._

_“Oh, it’s perfect, Mina, thank you,” Mother told her, eyeing the tree. “Would you be so kind as to bring it to the ballroom?”_

_Mina whinnied softly in assent, and Adrian waved as they parted ways, again._

_Once they reached the doors to Mother’s and Father’s rooms, she bent down so Adrian could give her a hug and a goodnight kiss on the cheek, then he and Father continued a bit farther on to Adrian’s own rooms, which he was finally big enough to have all for himself._

_“Adrian,” Father said, after several quiet minutes of Adrian preparing to sleep without any help._

_“Yes, Father?” he asked from inside his sleeping shirt, which he certainly wasn’t struggling with, not at all._

_“I think it would be a good idea,” Father began, helping Adrian untangle his sleep shirt and don it properly, even though Adrian had been doing_ ** _fine_** _on his own. “if you began lessons in swordsmanship.”_

_Adrian tipped his head at Father, not understanding at first. “Like Opa does?”_

_“Yes, although, as he refuses to move his school from Lupu, I likely would need to hire one of his students,” Father explained, then looked somewhere at the space above Adrian’s head, distractedly. “I wonder if the soul of his teacher might be willing to—? Well. Regardless, I believe it would increase your ability to protect yourself.”_

_Adrian crawled into bed, and Father helped settle the covers around him. “From the powerful humans?”_

_“Amongst others, yes,” Father answered, resting his hand on the top of Adrian’s head. “How about it?”_

_Adrian thought of the few memories he’d received about wielding a sword from Father—a semi-confusing whirl of blood and screaming, with an undercurrent of_ **_‘Not my preferred weapon, but needs must.’_ ** _—and from Mother—the feel of the leather binding under his hands, but his hands itching for the worn wooden handle of Oma’s herb knife—and concluded that he likely wouldn’t be able to learn the skill from memory. Or, he wouldn’t be able to learn it as well as Opa did, at least._

_There probably wasn’t another human alive as amazing as Adrian’s grandfather, in his opinion. Mother didn’t count._

_“Yes, please! I would very much like to use a sword like Opa,” Adrian squirmed with excitement at the idea, until Father used his hand to still him and guide his head to his pillow._

_“I thought you might,” Father said, softly amused. His mustache tickled when he pressed his own goodnight kiss to Adrian’s forehead. “Very well, I’ll make the necessary arrangements tonight, and you can begin training once your instructor arrives.”_

_“Goodnight, Father. Will you see Mother and me off in the morning?”_

_“_ _Of course_ _I will, son,” Father replied. “Now, go to sleep.”_

_Adrian dutifully closed his eyes as Father closed the door behind himself._

* * *

“Explain to me what happened. In **detail** ,” Dracula ordered, already reaching for his wine glass. 

Across the table, Adrian nodded, damp hair curling around his face more than usual. “As I said before, I stayed to answer some questions after posting the declaration and setting the first key—” 

“What’s there that needs answering? The eviction was clearly laid out,” Dracula grumbled, but settled at Adrian’s withering stare for the interruption. 

Clearing his throat pointedly, he continued. “Most of the questions **were** thinly veiled attempts to avoid banishment or test its boundaries and find potential loopholes. Naturally, I disabused them of these notions promptly, and dispersed much of the gathered crowd with it. 

“There was one group that lingered, however. They were largely quite willing to leave, even immediately, but sought my assistance to secure a safe departure from the city,” Adrian paused in his recount to sip his tea, and allow Dracula to ask the obvious question. 

Dracula rolled his eyes, but asked anyway, words practically dripping sarcasm. “Pray, tell me, just **who** exactly were these people?” 

“The Romani—the slaves,” Adrian told him, then half-closed his eyes and stared into his teacup like a predator deciding how best to eviscerate his prey. “I told them that, as the eviction in fact requires them to leave, that naturally all slaves of the government were accordingly freed to do so.” The corners of Adrian’s mouth curved upward slightly, and Dracula emptied his glass and called him out on it. 

“And? Don’t act surprised, I recognize that look on your face.” He set down his glass and leaned back in his chair. “There’s **more** to this story.” 

Adrian nodded. “One amongst their number asked me about the slaves that had been ‘gifted’ to the boyars and the Church. As you had never approved any such gift, I told them that there **were** no such categories of slaves, and that they had all, in fact, been slaves of the government the entire time, and were summarily also freed.” 

“Quite,” Dracula agreed. “Spirits, both with and without bodies of their own, make far better servants than humans, generally, and the pacts required for soul magic require consent and equivalent exchange.” 

“And you’ve never had the patience for the sort of mind-manipulation techniques that would circumvent that,” his son pointed out, half-teasing, and Dracula huffed sourly... but didn’t deny it. 

“Hmph. I gather you lingered so late in Târgoviște to escort them out of the city, then?” Adrian nodded, and Dracula gestured to his freshly-washed state. “Then how did you come to be as you were on the castle steps earlier, coated from the neck down in blood? You were **dripping**.” 

“The voivode’s men found us just as we were leaving the city,” Adrian answered with a slight, nonchalant shrug of one shoulder. 

“How many did they number?” Dracula asked, feigning boredom, though his eyes were keen. 

“Near forty, I imagine, though I did not stop to count them at the time,” Adrian admitted, then continued in a heavy voice. “Half of their number still smelled of ash and tree sap.” 

“So you killed the lot of them?” he demanded, struggling to swallow down a growl. 

“They started the altercation, and I finished it,” Adrian replied, with a softer but similar growl underlying his words. “Decapitations bleed rather profusely at close range, as it turns out.” 

“What of their corpses?” 

“I left the bodies in a drainage ditch for the crows,” Adrian took a delicate sip of his tea. “But I dropped their heads off back in the market square.” 

“Show me?” Dracula asked, holding out his empty wineglass. “I find myself unused to working alone anymore... and the distraction would be welcome.” Almost in unison, the two of them glanced at the empty chair and place setting at their table, but neither commented on it. 

“Very well,” Adrian agreed, setting aside his teacup to take the glass, neatly dragging the point of one fang over the meat of his open palm. 

“You would do well to practice this skill more, anyhow,” Dracula observed, then moved on before his son could look into that comment any further. “Visualize the memories you wish to share, individually and in their entirety, **then** will them to flow through your blood to me. Operating from a relaxed, calm state should make the process easier.” 

“A wonder, then, that my first attempt should go so poorly,” Adrian murmured, rather self-deprecatingly, carefully filling the glass. “I’m forever accused of being infuriatingly calm.” 

“You mistake ‘calm’ with ‘cold’, son,” Dracula watched as Adrian licked the small wound closed and passed the glass back. He swirled the dark red liquid around the glass as if it were yet more wine in need of aeration, or the like. “And more the fool they, that fail to appreciate what’s right before them. They do you a disservice, son.” 

“You haven’t drunk nearly enough to be intoxicated, yet—unless I missed several empty bottles hiding under the table,” Adrian tried rather unsubtly to nudge some levity into their conversation. “I think **you** might have been one of the first to call me that, besides. I’ve come to accept the peculiarities of my own personality.” 

“Bah,” Dracula grumbled, bringing the glass up to his lips. “Like I said: fools.” 

He let the fountains of blood within the memory soothe him, and said nothing about the gentle touch on his arm. 

One year. Their plan was in motion. By the dawn of the next summer solstice, the humans would be gone. 

It didn’t make it better, but at least neither of them was alone. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter, itself, was a bit cursed. I wasn't originally in much of a hurry to write this chapter, since general interest in this story's been pretty low, overall. So I definitely lost my momentum. Then, after I did start to work on it, I had a series of computer issues, one of which lost me part of this chapter that improperly auto-saved, and another which lost me pretty much all of my notes for this entire story (and necessitated I reinstall Windows). I've recovered a bit of the notes, relocated some of the rest, but the damage is done, really.
> 
> The 'modern' part of this chapter nearly went very differently, but I ultimately decided it wasn't Trevor's time, yet. 
> 
> I also watched seasons 1 and 2 again for references/note recovery, and noticed some things I'm completely ignoring/doing differently, like the location of Lisa's practice/Lupu and Greșit. Respect to the people in charge of the show, and all, but I have it on Wikipedia-authority that Transylvania and Wallachia were two different countries at the time, and...
> 
> Also, please forgive my fragmented-HEMA-knowledge indulgences.

_Point up and slightly back, crossguard roughly by his ear—the Day; bring the point forward, blade edge parallel to the ground, like a horn—the Ox; lower the hands and crossguard by the hips, so that the blade tips up toward the opponent’s face, concealing the sword's reach through foreshortening—the Plow; drop the point of the sword until it almost touches the ground, deceiving the opponent by appearing to leave oneself open, because who lowers their sword in a fight?—the Fool. Adrian named each guard to himself as he took their position, right hand leading on the sword grip for strength while his left held further down by the pommel to leverage the point of the blade into position, even if said point was rounded off and enlarged for safety on the practice sword._

_“Continue,” Master called, so Adrian resumed the warm-up/review drill, gradually adding in the secondary guards like the Wrath and the Hanging, then blocks like the Crown and the Iron Gate, before finally incorporating attacks like the Crooked Cut and the Seeking. Each step, shift, and angle had been carved into instinct by this point, a smooth progression at even his greatest speeds, though he did sometimes forgo the nimble steps the moves normally required in favor of floating above the ground or leaping into aerial cartwheels around his ‘opponent’._

_Master did not approve, exactly, but did not comment so long as he kept his sword point on the line of engagement and maintained the leverage to parry with strength when appropriate._

_Focused as he was on his drills, Adrian still could pick up the tell-tale signs of another presence joining them in the sparring hall: the soft pattering of footsteps on stone, the rustle and swish of loose cloth, soft and steady breathing that hitched suddenly, and the faint ‘tha-thump’ of a heartbeat accelerating._

_“Good evening, Mother,” Adrian paused the drill, turning to face her and resting the dull point of the practice sword against the floor. Master turned as well, the spectral visage of the man in his prime gradually evaporating like so much mist until only the corporeal skeleton underneath remained._

_“Guten abend, my Lady,” he echoed, even as his spectral form began to coalesce again around his bones. “What brings you to the training hall at this hour?”_

_“Oh!” Mother shifted in place a moment, abashed, then capitulated. “I only wanted to take a peek and see how your lessons were progressing, Adrian.” Here, she turned to Master and smiled, apologetically. “I didn’t mean to interrupt, Master Johannes.”_

_“Nonsense! Come, have a seat,” Master offered a bony arm to lead Mother to a plain wooden bench by the wall. “Together, we can surely find all of the flaws in the boy's form, nicht wahr?”_

_Adrian huffed in feigned affront, and Master laughed._

_Smiling, Mother replied. “I'm glad to help, then.”_

_Master's ghostly form pulled itself away from his bones, now carrying its own spectral longsword, and took up position a moderate distance across the sparring circle from Adrian. He held up one skeletal hand on the sideline until both figures were in a ready position, then let it drop._

_The fight was on. Each exchange of blows was lightning-quick and to the point, though neither side managed to score a hit on their opponent properly. There wasn’t time for hesitation, or overwrought showmanship, such that Mother's and Master's voices scarcely even registered to Adrian._

_“He's improved quite a bit since I last saw him practicing,” Mother murmured, barely above a whisper despite the frequent, ringing clang of metal on ‘metal'._

_“He is a diligent student,” Master replied just as softly, then suddenly raised his voice. “Watch the angle of your blade when you strike! That would hardly have cut through a well-stitched gambeson.”_

_“Surely Adrian is strong enough to succeed even with a less than ideal strike, though?” Mother asked below Adrian's brisk “Yes, Schwertmeister.”_

_“Mm, yes and no,” Master replied, tipping his skull from side to side, though not far enough to divert his eye sockets from the next series of exchanges. “It depends upon his opponent. Currently, he is not using all of the speed or strength I have seen him capable of, because he does not wish to harm my Image. He will not likely win this way, as I have the advantage in experience.”_

_“Is it so terrible, that he does not wish to cause you harm?” Some tenderness managed to sneak its way into Mother's voice at this news._

_“Bah! I am already dead, there is no harm to **do** ,” Master scoffed, then pantomimed holding a sword with one skeletal hand. “I cut off the head of my Image just this week past, to show him I would not be harmed.”_

_“Oh, my,” Mother covered her mouth. “How did he take that?”_

_“Poorly,” Master replied, laughter clear in his voice. “For such a quiet boy, he very **nearly** shouted at me.” Before them, Adrian performed an aerial cartwheel to one side, deflecting the image's following strike with one hand in preparation for a grapple. When the image read his intent and retreated before it was caught, Master shouted another reminder. “Messer practice is later, it’s two hands right now. I know you don’t care for it, but you **will** do it regardless.”_

_“Trouble?” Mother asked, hands fisting her top skirt when the image suddenly changed tactics, aggressively pursuing Adrian across the practice space, such that the only thing he could do at that speed was defend himself._

_“The swords are too light,” Master grumbled. “For most opponents, he doesn't truly **need** both hands on the hilt to maintain control and good alignment with his cutting edges. For the most part, that is.” He amended his statement slightly, in light of his earlier critique._

_“Would a heavier weapon better suit him, then?” Mother asked, then tutted when Adrian resorted to hovering above the ground to avoid stepping out of the ring during a 'sidestep'. “He isn’t even looking for an opening, now. I see now what you meant about limiting himself.”_

_“As you say,” Master agreed. “There **is** one sword in the Armory whose weight may suit him better, however...”_

_“However?” Mother prompted._

_“He insists the sword it not **his** to use,” Master murmured, somberly. _

_“Father’s zweihänder,” Mother acknowledged, soft and sad._

_As if these words were some sort of signal somehow, Adrian finally attempted to attack, a high Crooked Cut aimed for the side of the image’s head. Had it connected—and had his target been a living human and his a sharpened sword—the strike could have easily cleaved his head in two. Unfortunately, Master’s image had time enough to react, and used the time to block up at the strike from below, immediately pulling back slightly once the swing’s momentum had been arrested, to press the blunt edge of his ‘blade’ into Adrian’s wrists instead of his sword. Continuing with the same movement, the image wrenched his sword in a downward arc while stepping to the side, pulling Adrian’s arms around with it until his sword pointed away, harmlessly, at the floor._

_“And now he has lost his hands,” Master concluded, raising one bony hand. The image dissipated like mist, then reformed around his skeleton. “Rest a moment, boy, and we will move to the next part of our lesson.”_

_Adrian nodded, then returned his weapon to the rack of practice swords while Master retreated to the small, simple writing desk that seemed out of place in the corner of the room but was nearly drowning in notes and instructional material. Mother patted the seat next to her, and Adrian obliged, though he put some distance between them._

_“What are you doing, sitting all the way over there?” Mother asked, reaching to bodily drag him closer._

_“I stink, Mother; I don’t want to get sweat on your clothes,” Adrian protested half-heartedly. They both knew he could break free of her grip easily, but he restrained himself._

_“Nonsense, you’ve not sweat yet in the slightest, now come here.” Still, Adrian hesitated. “Just because you’ve grown taller than me doesn’t mean you aren’t immune from punishment for disobeying me. You **are** still my little boy, after all,” Mother scoffed, and pointedly tugged him under her arm and firmly into her side. Adrian had to bend down at an awkward angle for it to be accomplished, but he acquiesced without further protest._

_“You’re quite good, honey. Most fights would be decided much more quickly, especially against a master swordsman,” Mother praised, but Adrian quietly scoffed._

_“I could barely manage to keep myself alive. Up until the point where he **would have sliced my hands off** , that is.”_

_“Sometimes, that is the best—and only—thing you **can** do,” Mother countered, brushing a lock of hair behind the point of his ear. “And besides that—you were holding back. Why?”_

_Adrian didn’t try to deny it. “It didn’t seem… right. Fair. Master is human.”_

“ ** _Was_** _human,” Mother corrected. “As your father likes to remind us **both** , the world is not a fair place. All we can do to make it better, for ourselves and those around us, is what we can. You can do more than most, this is true, but that might not **stay** true if you gift your opponents surplus opportunities to hurt you… or to remove your hands.”_

_“But –” Adrian protested, somewhat meekly, but Mother tapped him on the nose with her free hand._

_“Ah! No arguing, I’m your mother and mothers are always right. Didn’t you know?” Her body jostled his lightly when she laughed. She probably thought of her assertion as a joke, but Adrian saw more than a portion of truth to it. “There exists a whole world of ways for you to be surprised or outmaneuvered without any help on your part.”_

_“Truer words were never spoken, my Lady,” Master chimed in from the desk, before setting aside one stack of mostly-organized notes for another._

_Mother tipped her head in acknowledgement. “You see? Always right.” She adjusted her hold so that Adrian could finally straighten his back out, but she refused to let him move farther than that. “Do you remember the scar that wrapped around your Opa’s right arm?”_

_Adrian nodded; aside from an assortment of small, incidental scars that naturally accumulated on a human that worked around sharp instruments, his late grandfather had but two prominent scars – one from the crown of his head to mid-forehead when a loaned helmet buckled unexpectedly during a battle and there wasn’t time to replace it for nearly a day, while the other was a thick, jagged line that circled his wrist before twisting around his arm to the elbow. Opa had never bothered to explain that one, but Adrian had simply assumed it was the result of a spiked chain, or whip, or the like._

_Father had told him several bedtime stories about the dangers of invading marauders with whips and chains when he was younger, before he’d begun training with Master Johannes._

_Apparently, this assumption was false. “He would never admit it to me or my sister, but while in the early stages of teaching one of the northern lords’ more timid sons, he offered to tie his hand behind his back, and it caught on a target stand during a spar. He nearly skinned himself, and Mother nearly finished the job when he came home, half delirious with fever.”_

_“A miracle he didn’t lose the arm, then, or testament to your mother’s skill, my Lady,” Master observed while Adrian mulled over the story, as well as what it implied._

_“He knew he had the restraint not to injure the boy beyond light bruising, but still he tried to make their sessions more fair.” Mother nudged Adrian, and he nodded, somewhat distractedly. He understood what she was getting at by telling him this. “Falling into a target would have bruised at best, otherwise.”_

_Conflicted, still Adrian nodded at Mother’s implied request. “I will… endeavor to remember that, Mother.”_

_“Good,” Mother smiled, cupping his cheek briefly before pulling him down again into a hug. “Your father and I worry enough about you as it is.”_

_Privately, Adrian suspected both Father and he worried about Mother more, but he didn’t say so. “I’m nearly full grown, Mother. You don’t need to worry about me.”_

_She scoffed, scooting away from him just so she could rest her fists on her hips, even sitting down. “You’re not yet thirteen – of course I do!” Under her breath, she grumbled a separate concern which Adrian politely pretended he couldn’t hear. “His research had best be right about that, too.”_

_“Bah! It’s not here,” Master suddenly complained into the ensuing silence, and they both looked over in time to see him drop the semi-organized notes in his hands back into a messy pile on the desk. “Right, change of plans – Messer for now, and we’ll come back to longsword when I find the damned note or write it out again.”_

_“Are you certain, Master?” Adrian asked, enthusiasm for the single-handed techniques he preferred tempered by the need for scholarly due diligence instilled into him by his parents. “You clearly know which technique you’ve been searching for.”_

_“Let’s call it my own manner of worrying about you, as both my student in your own right, und as the grandson of my former student,” Master replied, gesturing at his skeletal form. “The magical contract keeping me here will be completed eventually, but martial techniques, once learned, may fade from memory or be taken by too many strikes at the head.” He rapped his fist into his skull with a muted clunk._

_Uneasy at the reminder that he would lose yet another mentor once he had no more to teach him, Adrian stood, walking to the opposite end of the room to retrieve a one-handed sword from the racks there, back to the room to hide his face while regaining his composure. It was too soon to think about, especially with how fresh the wound of losing his Opa felt, but he couldn’t be greedy. Selfish. “You must miss the realm of spirits.”_

_“Not so much as you might think, child,” Master barked out a short, surprisingly bitter laugh. “I may have been a teacher to many, but I was never a good man.” The sword rack near Master’s desk rattled softly as he grabbed his own sword, and Adrian turned to face him again. He shrugged bony shoulders and walked toward the center ring. “I’ll accept what I’m due when the time comes again, but I would leave you with a record, first, should you need to refresh yourself.”_

_Mother stood as Adrian returned to the ring. “I’ll inquire with the Master Librarian about organizing your notes into a book, if you’d like?”_

_“I would appreciate that greatly, My Lady,” Master replied. “Perhaps, also, some red or blue ink? Some diagrams wouldn’t go amiss, though I claim no artistic talent to speak of.”_

_“Actually, Adrian has a fine hand for diagramming,” Mother volunteered, and Adrian looked up, somewhat startled, from the deep leg stretches he fallen into to distract himself from this topic. “It could be another part of his studies.”_

_“Fair enough,” Master agreed, not bothering to stretch muscles he no longer had. Mother stood and brushed the wrinkles from her skirts while Adrian finished stretching, then began walking around them to the door. She paused behind Adrian, though, and he turned to look over his shoulder at her, questioningly._

_She was staring at the sword in his hand with a small frown. Adrian waited her out, disinclined to interrupt an apparently deep thought process._

_“Similar to gifting opponents extra opportunities to hurt you is refusing to use a superior tool specifically gifted to you out of a sense of propriety.”_

_Reminded again of the wrapped parcel, roughly his same height, that had rested untouched on a table of the armory for nearly two years, Adrian hunched in on himself. “But that’s Opa’s sword.”_

_“It’s **your** sword, honey. It’s part of our family legacy that he wanted you to carry on. You don’t hesitate like this over the armor.”_

_“I’m the only Fahrenheit it would have fit,” he justified halfheartedly, refusing to admit that being encased in his grandfather’s armor reminded him, in some small way, of being wrapped within one of his infrequent but vigorous bear hugs._

_“It’s a shame to have one’s legacy die with them,” Master observed, waiting on the other side of the ring._

_“Especially a legacy of protecting people. Aren’t you proud of the man your grandfather was?”_

_Now that was just **unfair**. Adrian frowned, looking between the two of them before finally, at last, relenting. “All right, all right. I’ll use it, just –,“ He swallowed once, then again, looking sidelong at Mother. “Not today. Please? I need to… think about a few things, first.”_

_“But you **will** do it?” Mother pressed, even as she backed away to give him some space. He nodded meekly, and finally she smiled again. “Good. I’ll let you get back to your lessons, then. Good night, honey.”_

_“Good night, Mother,” he replied, then turned to face Master, again._

_“Shall we?” Master asked._

_Adrian nodded, and they began again._

* * *

Nearly two months into his rounds and Adrian still found himself occasionally, unpleasantly, surprised.

News of him and his mission had begun to occasionally precede his arrival into the village and towns along his path, particularly when they sat along roads that intersected his meandering spiral outward from Father’s castle, still hidden away in the vicinity of Târgoviște. It wasn’t surprising it itself, therefore, when a clamor began to rise from the city of Pitești as they drew close enough for the human watchmen to identify their colors.

In both preparation for, and precaution against, their approach on Argeș, and the court of voivode Basarab III situated there, Father had sent additional armors and shrouded nightmares, bolstering his relatively small entourage nearly into a full company. The show of force was largely performative, of course, but it did lend greater gravity to his proclamations when surrounded by halberdiers and arbalists, and flanked by a pair of cloaked swordsmen.

Perhaps _too much_ gravity for Pitești, though, even so large as it was.

He had come to find himself at a bit of a standstill, arguing with the city’s elderly headman through the lowered portcullis, while a collection of archers watched on from atop the walls.

It took nearly all the patience he had not to simply stab the note into the wall’s exterior and be done with it.

Everyone deserved the chance to leave, though, and he was _skeptical_ , to say the least, that the headman would pass along any message he gave him. Being so close to Argeș, it would make sense for the man to have some direct tie to the voivode’s court, after all.

“For the _tenth time_ –,” He muttered to himself, before raising his voice again so the humans could hear. “These are merely my father’s servants; we intend no harm to Pitești or its people. I simply have a message to deliver, then we will be on our way.”

“You expect us to believe you and just, what, _open the gate_ and allow entrance to a force armed for war, simply on your word and that of your supposed ‘father’? I’ve not seen your colors at any of the elections in my lifetime, and I refuse to hand over the city in my care for _occupation_ or rebellion.”

_He’s a fool of a human, but his intentions do seem good. Which makes this whole mess more aggravating, naturally._

Adrian sighed, then reached his hands out, imploringly. “Perhaps if I delivered my message alone, then? I have nothing more to prove it than my word, but I am my father’s only child. He would risk no violence in or around the city if I might be hurt in the process –”

_Not that such thing was likely to occur. Adrian was himself more dangerous than his ‘bodyguards’, and Father was busy building the power and intent of the spell._

_Not that Father **wouldn’t** come searching for him, should he fail to return again at sun’s set._

“– and, once I have delivered this message, my retinue and I will leave directly. We would not trouble you again.”

The headman’s hand rasped against his stubble as he eyed Adrian, consideringly. Wood and leather creaked overhead, and Adrian found himself holding his breath to await his decision. Ridiculous, really, but he’d never fully understood human behavior, and repeated exposure seemed to make him more susceptible to it.

“Oh, very well, then. But _just_ you; leave your sword with your horse. _Outside_.”

“Of course,” he replied, dismounting onto the packed, dry earth of the road. Hands moving to untie his sword frog, so that he might hand off the sword within his scabbard, he hesitated minutely. Instead, he retied the frog, looser than before, then drew the sword from its scabbard and handed the naked blade, point-down, to the Cloaked Knight beside him, who took it wordlessly. He could feel the sword’s displeasure like the wrong sort of metallic tang at the back of his throat, but there was nothing for it.

This would be the way he would enter the city, it seemed.

He turned to the headman for approval before approaching the gate.

Father would probably be cross with him about this.

Still, should any of the villagers try anything, he had a variety of tools to defend himself with, including the scabbard, until his sword or other defense arrived. Or he could simply use the Mist or teleportation to escape.

It was all a bit ridiculous, really.

Still, he was tempted to key in the notice on the headman’s house instead of the church, just for wasting so much of his time.

**Author's Note:**

> This both is and isn't a 'The Bad Guys Win' story. Beyond this first chapter, it should mostly be following Alucard's perspective, and will become more violent (though probably less so than the show, because little/no night horde). That is to say, Trevor and Sypha have decent odds of dying, if they end up showing up in the story, so be aware.
> 
> I have some potential ideas involving Hector (and possible Adrian/Hector...?), Isaac, and others further on down the line


End file.
